Preservation of white meat fish: blends and vacuum comparing

The Client

The test was made possible by collaboration with a company operating in the import-export of seafood products, intended for the restaurant and hotel industry. The activities of this Italian brand include fish storage and processing, with a strong focus on food safety, as well as high quality raw materials.

Its requirements

The purpose of this intervention was to compare the different conservation methodologies to, consequently, determine the one that performs best from different points of view. Beginning with the highest food safety standards, to the maximum durability of the food, maintaining all the chemical, physical, organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of the fish.

SIAD’s intervention.

The test phases allowed the three different methodologies to be tested on white flesh fish, particularly sea bream and sea bass:

• Vacuum, with complete elimination of oxygen from the food package
• Protective atmosphere with binary mixture: nitrogen CO₂, one of which has a high CO₂ content (at a later stage also additivated with lemon aroma)
• Protective atmosphere with ternary mixture: nitrogen, CO₂ and oxygen

The fish, both whole and filleted, has been subjected to several tests, allowing unambiguous considerations to be arrived at.

The results obtained

From the experiment conducted, it can be seen that the different gas mixtures have a slowing effect on the growth of the tested microorganisms compared with vacuum. For some of these, the growth potentials, using the gas mixtures, even halved. Among the different mixtures tested, the one with a high CO₂ content proves to be the most effective for preserving the analyzed fish product, with a shelf life even doubled, compared to the other mixtures or vacuum. Aroma+, SIAD’s high-CO₂, lemon-flavored gas mixture, tested on a food preparation, confirms the positive performance, without altering the preservation in any way, in fact making the olfactory experience markedly more pleasant.